the best time to move was when you couldn't see anyone else. After all, you could never be sure that no one was seeing you. You just moved, and then you waited to see if anything happened. If someone came at you, you fought. Or ran, if the other looked too dangerous.

No one came at him this time. Only a few days ago he'd come into the park and two men had been hidden in the bushes a few yards from the wall. They'd been lying very still, and had covered themselves with leaves, so he hadn't seen them; and they'd been looking the other way, waiting for someone to come along one of the paths or through the trees, so they hadn't seen him looking over the wall.

The instant he'd landed, they were up and chasing him, yelling that if he'd drop his knife and any food he had they'd let him go. He dropped the knife, because he had others at home—and when they stopped to paw for it in the leaves, he got away.

Now he got into a crouching position, very slowly. His nostrils dilated as he sniffed the breeze. Sometimes you knew men were near by their smell—the ones who didn't stand outside when it rained and scrub the smell off them.

He smelled nothing. He looked and listened some more, his blue eyes hard and bright. He saw nothing except trees, rocks, bushes, all crowded by thick weeds. He heard nothing except the movement of greenery in the afternoon breeze, the far off baying of the dog pack, the flutter of birds, the scamper of a squirrel.

He whirled at the scamper. When he saw that it was a squirrel, he licked his lips, almost tasting it. But it was too far away to kill with the knife, and he didn't want to risk stoning it, because that made noise. You stoned squirrels only after you'd scouted all around, and even then it was dangerous—someone might hear you anyway and sneak up and kill you for the squirrel, or for anything else you had, or just kill you—there were some men who did that. Not for guns or knives or food or anything else that Steven could see ... they just killed, and howled like dogs when they did it. He'd watched them. They were the men with the funny looks in their eyes—the ones who tried to get you to come close to them by pretending to offer you food or something.

In a half-crouch Steven started moving deeper into the park, pausing each time he reached any cover to look around. He came to a long green slope and went down it soundlessly, stepping on rocks whenever he could. He crossed the weedgrown bridle path, darting from the shelter of a bush on one 

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